I wanted to start in December, but with the Codfishing off the Cape/Chatam about to start, and with a good buddy prodding me along to post some pics, I am going to start this thread off with some Jigs and Teasers and how they are rigged.

These are various pics I have collected, some new, some old, but all will illustrate the many jig combination's YOU can use to catch cod in the GOM or off Georges. I will add another selection on another day...and hope all of you contribute to this thread!

Do you know what to carry in your codfish jig bucket for a Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank groundfish trip?

HI Bill....Yep Kenny has them in the store for the last 5 years, right over his head where him and the Bunker King put them...Those are the Bingle Tubes that Captain Mike Romeo when he ran the Helen H in Mass. turned me onto, and they worked really well when jigging fish on the Shoals.

Stella Maris used to carry them when Bingle was still in business, but when he sold out I did not see them anymore. I have a load of them here in the dark blue and have some in the gold color. It is a copy of a sand eel with plastic tubing, that crazy mylar they used, a bent bluefish long shanked limerick hook and a heavy duty swivel.

It was pretty popular for a couple of years and did not get beat up like the rubber stuff does....just grab the fish, and rip the tube out and then get back into the water. Of course anything Bingle made was pretty good, to incredible. In my book, the best lure maker that came from the northeast.

My digital just crapped the bed, but tomorrow I will take some pictures of those tubes. I do remember the price got really high on them and that may have been a reason why they just became unpopular with cod fishermen.

Good morning Jay, and within the next 2 hours (have to get my workout in), I will post more pics. I bet you have some collection of GOM and Georges jigs and tackle, and the point I rarely want to stress is that as you can see, there are various ways in which you can rig you codfish jigging setups.

Yes some are better then others at times, but many of us Jay can remember when the old Sekora umbrella rig tubes were the de-facto teasers we used to rig up with on 60-80 lb Ande mono. Honestly they caught fish and I do remember a trip to the Bidevind years back where those Sekora teasers worked fine, but we really did not have anything else to use since the Bingle teasers mentioned here came out a number of years later.

Your right about jigs such as the old standard jacketed Slovkrokens, having caught more then their share of big cod over the years. How many times have I mentioned the 'pipe' codfish jigs which Billy U had on his boat, and they worked just fine. I don't even think I have one of those laying around anymore since I thought they were some wreckfishermens basement experiment in jig making, gone wrong!

At certain times, any species of fish bites their respective heads off. But the guy who catches fish consistently is the guy who's prepared for most conditions: Deep/shallow, Wreck/open bottom, fast drift/slow, Big Fish/Small fish.........

This thread will give insight (to those who know as well as those who dont) under a variety of conditions.

Thanks for starting this thread Steve. I'll chime in later on various techniques we use in the Northeast.

"When someone shares something of value with you and you benefit from it, you have a moral obligation to share it with others" - Chinese Proverb

Well I had a couple of minutes in between phone calls, working out, and breakfast at 12 noon, yes the only time I could sit down for a few peaceful moments, and then take a bunch of digital snap shots!

What I have done here, is to pull out some of the 'stuff' I have down in my compound, of more jigs and teasers that I used over the years.

I still have more pics to post, which I will do over the next few days. If there is one theme in this thread it is that CODFISH will hit almost anything when they are around, espeically when they are around in good numbers, like they used to be when we fished Georges and Nantucket.

I will also put up in another post some CODFISH tackle now see being sold. It does make one believe in the saying:

"EVERYTHING WORKS FOR CATCHING CODFISH, BUT NOTHING WORKS 100 PERCENT OF THE TIME, EVEN FRESH SKIMMERS"

Fortunately their are some fishermen here who know much more then I do about codfish jigs and tackle like Mister X, NMSBOB and Downeast Jay. They can comment on what they think some of this tackle may be worth in purchasing and using these days. Remember I basically stopped full time fishing around the birth of my son in 1996, so a number of pieces of the tackle seen here, is the 'old stuff' that worked at that time. In particular you will notice my favorite FLO-RED surgical tubing that I loved cutting into thin tentacles, which a cod fishermen of some note Ted DIckes showed me back in the day.

The surgical tubing over the hook worked as well as the simple rubber grubs that the VIKING FLEET used to sell on the long range cod trips and held up much better. During the nineties though, the gizits and then fancy plastic squid lures started to be made by a number of manufacturers in different sizes and most notableand more important, different colors. Again I want to point out that FLO RED was the workhorse color fishing on Georges, but as I have learned over the years, dark blues, purples, pinks and orange at times, can outfish the FLO RED colored tubing, sometimes by a noticeable margin. This means that a cod fishermen has to match the hatch, especially for those who fish in the GOM, as NMSBOB and others from that area will tell you.

The above two pics show the infamous Bingle Sand Eel Tube. I came across these while in Stella Maris Bait & Tackle talking to Mike Romeo who said to try these out, since they worked so well on the Helen H, so I did, and ended up buying a few dozen since they worked well for fishing in the Cape. I did talk to Don Bingle the maker of that lure around the same time and he said, the key to this lure was the special mylar under the plastic tubing, and that it was pretty expensive to purchase that type of mylar at that time (early 90s I believe) cut it and then slide it down the big limerick hook, and thats why they cost more then the traditional Sekora, and Jeros Tackle umbrella tubes which were more popular. It really was a slight variation off his original Bingle Banana bluefish lure, but now with the added mylar inside a hard plastic tube. As I stated before, these lures could take a beating and the only thing I found to be a problem was that they could of used a slightly heavier lb test swivel. I believe it is still a good lure, and I would not leave home without a few in my tackle bag, especially with that dark blue color which you see in the image.

These two types of jigs are what I and may others believe are the best cod jigs ever made. To the left are a S&G 9 and 12, and two the right without the plating are original Angerman 10, 12 and 14 oz lures. Over the years I have talked about how great the S&G 9 oz jig was in the Cape, Even Lester the captain or Rosy in Hyannis loved them. It did everything you wanted in a jig, in that it went down like a missle, and could both be bounced off the bottom and squidded in. As my good buddy Johnny V would say about the S&G 9, if you have to use anything else, then its not going to be really good fishing off Hyannis. These jigs dissapeared for a number of years, but a family member starting to remake them, then stopped, so what you are seeing is the last of one of the best diamond jig designs ever made. The Angerman jig was the de-facto work horse jig for use in the GOM especially on the Bunny Clark since the nineties. All 3 sizes shown here work incredibly well, with the 10 being a standout all around cod and even tuna jig. I will leave it to NMS BOB to explain more if necessary about these jigs, but the sad thing about them is that the price made them very prohibitive to purchase, and another lure maker, came up with the LAV designs which is very similar, and works just as well for less money.

I just had to throw these 3 jigs into the mix since they were made by a local commercial fishermen out of Shinnecock who copied the MEGA BAIT lures that were popular around here a few years back. These are custom made, and weight more then the average MEGA BAIT, and have a heavy gauge tru-wiring so that you can pound them on the bottom. I have never used them and save them because they look so nice for a handmade jig by someone I know. I have a number of original MEGA BAIT jigs already rigged that I will post later on, that I have used for offshore sea bassing and pollack fishing. I found them to be nothing spectacular, and have there moments, but they are no where as good as a regular hammered diamond jig from what I have personally seen.

Here are two interesting cod jigs not seen to often, To the left is a PEACE TOKEN 300g (10 oz) MACKERAL BACK SEA GATOR. I bought a bunch on recommendation from Mike in the store, and I have never used them. Look nice, and you must admit, it caught something, ME the fishermen! To the right is a BURKETT 16 oz jig. The story on the BURKETT jig can be found here: WHIT @ BURKETT JIGS, and from what I know they only make one size, the 16 oz which works for fishing in the GOM. I have used them once, and I like them. They are handmade jig, and you can see the polishing done on them as well as the heavy duty hardware that is attached to this jig which is made for pounding the bottom in the GOM and for commercial use. For the money these jigs are a great value and they do catch fish. I hope some of the fishermen in the GOM chime in on these, and I do hope they are still in business since their website has not been updated in a while. Hopefully the interest from here will spur them to update their site.

Hey, what? no hammered jigs?A few of us fish Georges almost exclusively squidding hammered jigs 8-12oz. A bunch of us have been squidding Georges with Steve on the Viking for many, many years, and driving 85% of the other customers crazy (Lol). Especially if you can get a good cast uptide of the drift.

I can also post a pic of me on the bow of the Viking Star, 1990, I was 20, and squidded 101 cod on a summer Georges trip with 12 people.

That squidding is fun...different animal fishing up in the Gulf of maine though.....

I have to look for the photo, but on a charter boat from Hyannis one time, we fished a barge in the rips in about 50-60 feet of water, catching cod/pollack/striped bass all on the same drift with 6oz jigs and jelly worms. Besides at the dock and up around Ammon Rock does water that shallow exist in the gulf of maine???